Monday, 15 June 2015

Commas and comas

La
Torre de Dalt is in the hills above Girona in Spain. We are less than
20 kilometres from Figueres, Salvador Dali's hometown, and this
gathering is as wonderful as his paintings. Thirty friends
and relatives from diverse backgrounds are
here and last night Teo Krilic played guitar for us. He opened with
Na klepeciNaunulama – my favourite traditional Bosnian sevdah
song. The words are those of a daughter hearing the clogs of her dead
mother on the stairs. We all remember our missing dead and some
of us our missing living as well. There are still a few writers here. They move around together and we have named them the 'murmuration of writers'. In the evenings they read their work and
last night invited Oha Maslo to join them. He laughed and apologised
for turning down the invitation: “As soon a I see the first comma I go into a coma.” I write looking across at the Cap
de Creus above Cadaquéswhere
Dali had his summer home. Some of my guests are going to visit his
museum in Figueres this week, but they don't need to go there to
experience the weirdly wonderful. It's right here. And I think I am
going to have to write another chapter for 'Left Field'. Its title? 'Commas and comas'.